COLNE VALLEY High athlete Jess Hirst is heading to the English Championships at Bedford next month.
It will be the culmination of a busy couple of months for the Halifax Harrier, who is progressing well in discus and hammer.
In June she won gold in the West Yorkshire Schools Championships discus, having previously achieved the qualifying standard to represent West Yorkshire at the English Schools Athletic Championships at Gateshead International Stadium.
That event was held over two days earlier this month, with the cream of the 13-20 year old athletes in the UK – and was a definite step up in competition standard.
Throwing close to her personal best with a mark of 26.84m, Hirst finished ninth, which was an excellent performance considering her being at the bottom of the age group and, in fact, the youngest in the competition by seven months.
She will stay in the same age group next year when she hopes to push for a medal.
At the Northern Athletics Championships in Hull, Hirst did superbly to take a bronze medal in the hammer with her final throw and a new personal best of 33.36m.
In the discus, she experimented with technique, knowing she’d have to throw well over her personal best to be in with a chance of a medal. It didn’t quite work out and she finished ninth.
That 30m-plus throw in the hammer, however, qualified her for Bedford and the chance to compete against the best young athletes in the country.
